Metal casing maker Casetek plans NT$2.16bn IPO

By Helen Ku / Staff reporter

Metal casing manufacturer Casetek Holdings Ltd (鎧勝控股) yesterday said it planned to issue 24 million new shares in its initial public offering (IPO) to raise NT$2.16 billion (US$74.39 million). Each share will be priced at NT$90, the company said.

Casetek, a subsidiary of Taiwanese notebook contract maker Pegatron Technology Corp (和碩), said it aims to use the funds to reallocate resources for its business expansion plans and maximize its operating efficiency.

Currently, Pegatron holds 74.39 percent of Casetek’s shares as its biggest shareholder and plans to reduce this percentage to less than 70 percent after the company’s shares are listed on the stock market.

Established in the Cayman Islands in 2010, Casetek now has NT$3.16 billion in capital and more than 35,000 employees throughout its subsidiaries, RiTeng Computer Accessory Co Ltd (日騰電腦) and AVY Precision Technology Inc (應華精密), which are located in Shanghai and Suzhou.

Casetek is a metal case manufacturer which designs products used for notebooks, desktop computers and tablets. Its major clients include renowned brands, such as Taiwan’s Acer Inc (宏碁) and Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦), US computer giants Dell Inc, Hewlett-Packard Co (HP) and Apple Inc, Japanese electronics maker Fujitsu Ltd and Toshiba Corp, and Chinese PC maker Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想).

“We forecast demand for aluminum alloy metal cases will remain robust until 2016, and both notebook and tablet brand companies will continue to place orders with us as we have a high capacity utilization rate of up to 80 percent,” Casetek chief executive officer Gary Chuang (莊育志) said in a pre-IPO investors’ conference yesterday.

For the first three quarters of last year, Casetek posted NT$21.33 billion in sales, with a gross margin of 21.08 percent, profit margin of 8.81 percent and earnings per share of NT$6.85.

“Excluding Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), we are the only company that is vertically integrated with notebook contract makers. Through its tight partnership with Pegatron, Casetek is able to obtain orders from Apple easily,” Chung said.

Chung added that Casetek manufactures about 100,000 units of metal casing for Apple’s iPad and iPad Mini tablets every day, using 5,500 of its computer numerical control metal band saw machines, and had shipped a total of 2.5 million units of iPad’s and iPad Mini’s metal cases in the fourth quarter of last year, driving up its overall annual sales to more than NT$25 billion.

Asked whether Casetek will manufacture metal cases designed for smartphones, particularly for Apple’s iPhone, Casetek chairman T.H. Tung (童子賢) said the company is expanding its business and adjusting its product mix.

“In the short term, the mobile device market is growing at a rapid pace, but it is hard to tell whether it will soon be saturated. We will take every possible situation into consideration,” Tung said.

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